Notes on chocolate: croissant crumbs and other delights

Last autumn, I wrote about baked goods in chocolate and how it was a very hit-and-miss marriage and, almost as if to prove me wrong, along come some bars that show that it’s actually mostly hit.

Pump Street, pioneers in this field since they started using leftover sourdough and rye crumbs in their chocolate, have launched two new bars in their Bakery Series. Whenever I go to Pump Street’s Bakery in Orford, Suffolk, I think about having something different, from the pastry counter but always settle on what I always have: a gibassier (only available at weekends), which is an enriched-dough breakfast pastry, originating from Provence, with bits of orange peel in it and flavoured with orange flower water and aniseed, then sprinkled with sugar. My love for it is augmented, because it’s very much an occasional treat (selfishly, Pump Street opened their bakery about an hour’s drive from where I live, also in Suffolk). Now you can get a Gibassier bar in 62% cocoa (West Papua), £6.75, and the taste translates beautifully.

There’s also the Pain Aux Amandes bar in 38% (Togo), £6.75, chocolate which is so almond-croissant-tasting it’s kinda spooky (a very Wonka experience). But! My one male tester could not taste the pastry element in either of these bars so you have to give this a go and let me know.

Finally, probably my favourite of all is NearyNógs’s Soda Bread bar, £7.25. It’s a traditional Irish Soda Bread lightly toasted in 60% Togo chocolate. It’s superb. Unlike the Pump Street bars the bakery profile takes second lead to the cocoa, but it still lends a gorgeous taste to add up to something cocoa-strong but really treaty. I urge you to try it.

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